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Showing posts from 2018

The Wandering Mind

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Forest Painting Autumn Trees by Karen Arnold Roughly four years ago I was introduced to a guided meditation in one of my psychology classes. The goal of the meditation was for us to focus on our breathing and to create our own perception of what we could feel. For example, my professor told me to think of a tree. Students would describe what type of tree they saw in their meditation. Some saw big trees, small trees, palm trees, burned trees, trees with green leaves, brown leaves, no leaves, etc. The point of the meditation was to identify why we were seeing the tree the way it was in our vision. This was expanded upon with a bridge we crossed, a cave, a door, and eventually, what was behind that door. The students focused on their breathing and would be prompted to sense the forest. We were asked if we could feel, hear, taste, smell, or see anything in the forest. Students were able to identify at least one or two senses while in this meditation.  For the last three and a ha

Centipede

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Peruvian Centipede by Jude Labuszewski Why am I here at this party? The battery on my phone is dying and I should leave. I came for him and him only. He's got too drunk again as he always does. I wish we could just go to bed and be done for the night. He keeps talking to those other girls. Don't get jealous, don't get jealous, get yourself together don't get jealous. He wants me. What would his girlfriend think? Take a deep breath. His girlfriend treats him wrong. He's sleeping with you. She's cruel. He cheats. So what if I am sleeping with him and he has a girlfriend. He just gets me like no one else does. We met in high school, went to the same college, and really hit it off. I mean he never did leave his high school sweetheart but he is only trying to keep a good face for his town. He was like the hometown hero. All the girls adored him and honestly I think I love him. No, you don't. Yes, I do. He was quite charming when we met. We were so

The Owl

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(Owl Painting by EvelineVdp) Why are you still here? The owl was one of the wisest of the animals in the forest. He was always around, and all the animals would follow him before the wolves and the bears came into the forest. The owl was bitter due to losing his power to a rabbit long before the wolf came into focus. The wolf was patient, and knew when to strike, which at this time was not the time. The owl fail from grace long before anyone tried to bring him down. All of his failures were due to his own actions. He would sneak off and engage with the pleasures that was not acceptable in the forest. Of course, all the animals did things that were not acceptable in the forest. The owl was from an old era, which he could not adapt to the change with the different animals that rose to power over the years. The owl could not accept defeat, which lead to his downfall. The owl wanted the best for the forest, and his ideas were genuine. He meant well, forgiving, but was not afraid to

To Become

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Evening Bell at Mii Temple Ando Hiroshige I have heard the phrase "don't change for anyone" many times so far in my life. The idea that someone should accept who we are instead of us changing to benefit others. Social media is full of this "you're beautiful the way you are" pictures and videos to help boost your confidence. We all want to feel good and we want them likes on our pictures. We want people to tell us we are beautiful, that our personality is valued, and that we are an overall good person. Do you think you're a good person? We all want validation for our good deeds. We all want to hear the "good job". The main question though is what are we actually doing in our lives and how can we become better as a person? What can you do to be a better you? Could you eat better? Could you be more kind? Could you be more forgiving? Could you be more empathetic? Could you work harder? Could you find a better discipline? There is a lot w

13 Reasons Why: The Line

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MAJOR SPOILERS I will be talking about the ending. I am a firm believer in giving time to process any entertainment we engage in being reading, movies, television, video games and art. I finished 13 Reasons Why on Thursday and I wanted time to digest what I watched. The second season was just as painful to watch as the first one and I don't mean painful by the scenes of violence and sexual assault but just the story progression, writing, and character development. This is still a teenage drama with dealing with situations that teenagers may experience. My issue is that with the major success of the first season, Netflix wanted to up the ante by going more shocking than the first season. Which what the first season led to warning advisors before each episode, a warning when you paused the show, and a link to more information of the end of each episode. The second season now has led to protests and petitions to cancel the series. I for one did not think it was more graphic

The Avengers: What Happened and Whats Next

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Final Scene in Avengers: Infinity War MAJOR SPOILERS IN THIS POST YOU'VE BEEN WARNED If you have seen Avengers: Infinity War (AIW) , then you recognize this image. It's where Thanos sits and watches the sunrise which he mentions earlier in the movie. He explains that once he has all the stones he will wipe out half of all leaving things and then watch the sunset...and that is exactly what happens. After the movie, my future father-in-law and I just sat and tried to wrap our minds around what we just watched. AIW was a good movie, I would definitely see it again and seeing how all the characters work around each other was good to see. I loved the introduction to the iron-spider, Thor meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy, and how everyone had some form of significance. What we are used to in every Marvel Universe movie is a good ending. Even the ending of Civil War ended on a somewhat good note. We are not used to seeing the Avengers lose which they did miserably in thi

Trillion Lights

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Eye of Hiroshima (Atomic bomb) by Oscarliima What makes you and I human? Is it because we behave in our society? That we live in our communities? Not killing each other for survival. What separates us from animals? What separates us from anything on this planet? What would happen if you stripped away what makes us human? What would happen if you stripped away our animalistic minds? What would happen if you stripped away our will to live? I sit in this little bunker. I'm laying in bed with a cigarette between my lips. The person who lays next to me reaches over for my cigarette.He wanted to share since we were running low on rations. I keep smoking away. I don't care about him. I didn't care about anyone anymore. Time was no longer with us anymore. We had been in this bunker for so long I couldn't say if it was day or night. We all slept till we woke and did what we wanted. At this moment I wanted to smoke and be left alone. I got out of bed put my clothes on and

Pride

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The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave DorĂ©  Pride is a terrible thing. We have all acted on our pride which has led to not so good places in our lives. Pride has led to the end of friendships, families, and people that we love to no longer be in our lives. Pride has also been expanded upon throughout histories such as the ego and narcissism. The painting above represents to tower of Babel, where the pride of people had the idea of trying to reach heaven. They didn't make it and instead, God made them all speak different languages making everyone babel...bummer. With my last post about gluttony, you the reader can see where I am going with my blog. Pride can be split into a good and bad. Someone with an inflated ego is bad, but someone with high self-esteem is good. See how this could be seen as the same person with two drastic perceptions? I can't vouch for every society, but where I am right now and the culture that I live in, pride has ruined a lot of people and I believ

Gluttony

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Gluttony by Jacques de l'Ange What a time to be alive. We have advanced so far in our society and we have made so much progress in our community. All the diseases we have cured, all the technologies we have created, and changes in the way we interact with the people in our lives everyday. I feel like this is the best time to be alive, but I feel with every great stride in the advancement of humanity we have new problems. We have overindulged in our what we see in our media these days. I want to bring up to big advancements to our society, one old and one new. The News Should we as a society know everything about everything? The media is always reporting from all over the world and keeping us updated, informed, in the know , about everything that is everything. Should we know everything though? I hear a lot of people discuss that they don't watch the news due to all the negativity that is reported. That the news may portray that nothing good is happening to the world